The Asian Canadian Living Archive (TACLA) is reclamation and renewal.
We at TACLA believe in the power of listening to and recording the stories and wisdoms of those who came before us and did the necessary work to pave a way for us in the present.
We also believe in using our creative abilities to engage, expand, and critique the work of our elders, and tell our own stories to forge different ways.
TACLA is a meeting ground for creative storytelling and intergenerational engagement, nurtured by and for our communities. We are committed to creative research, artful representation, and equitable outreach to tell intentional narratives about our histories, presents, and futures.
Mandate // Archive As Genealogies
Why create TACLA?
TACLA has a threefold mandate in our activities:
- To Gather: To connect and bring pan-Asian artists together in dialogue, creation and resistance
- To Keep: To imaginatively remember histories, presents, and stories of pan-Asian Canadian artist communities
- To Witness: To animate multiple knowledges in nonlinear, messy and flexible ways for the purpose of empowering, educating and healing communities
Content
What goes in TACLA?
In phase one, we will be actively sourcing, brainstorming and pitching TACLA’s ideas to groups of people, partnering with community organizations to pilot initiatives.
In phase two, we will begin co-constructing multimedia artist profiles, compile a directory of active community arts and grassroots initiatives in the GTA, publish critical intertexts in the form of introductions and reviews produced by our communities, and program animation and outreach events throughout the GTA.
Principles
How does TACLA work?
TACLA is committed to working collaboratively in decolonial praxis and radical imagination, which means critically working in solidarity with and toward pan-Asian communities.
We understand that allyship requires a spirit of humility, listening, and a willingness to be open and held accountable to build relationships communally through the many different histories, cultures and positionalities that make the pan Asian diaspora on Turtle Island.
All Our Relations
TACLA is committed to solidarity with Indigenous Nations and peoples who are the traditional and present keepers of this land.
We are also allied with Black communities here on Turtle Island fighting white supremacy, anti-blackness and the devastating, continuing structures of colonialism.
We believe in intentional solidarity and allyship practices. We invoke the pan-Asian as both praxis and goal while recognizing that Asian diasporas, histories and presents are varied, complex and conflicting.